Lorenzo Fioramonti

Lorenzo Fioramonti is Full Professor of Political Economy at the University of Pretoria (South Africa) and he is the founding director of GovInn. He is also Senior Fellow at the Centre for Social Investment of the University of Heidelberg and at the Hertie School of Governance (Germany) and Associate Fellow at the United Nations University. Lorenzo is the first and only Jean Monnet Chair in Africa and also holds the UNESCO-UNU Chair in Regional Integration, Migration and Free Movement of People. In 2012, he received the UP Exceptional Young Researcher Award.

His most recent books are How Numbers Rule the World: The Use and Abuse of Statistics in Global Politics (Zed Books 2014) and Gross Domestic Problem: The Politics Behind the World’s Most Powerful Number (Zed Books 2013), which deal with the political interests behind economic statistics and market governance. Prof. Fioramonti’s opinion pieces have been published, among others, by The New York Times, The Guardian, Business Day, Die Presse, Das Parlament, Der Freitag, The Mail&Guardian and www.opendemocracy.net

Lorenzo speaks Italian, English, Spanish and German (maybe a little bit of French, but it’s been rusty for long). He’s a sought after public speaker and a failed film-maker.